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Jake And Reese Still Together! Have You Ever Split During a Holiday?

After a weekend of frantic speculation, reps for Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal say the couple hasn’t broken up. Whew!

But oh, not all of us are so lucky. Holidays put a ton of pressure on relationships, as I’ve found out first hand. I almost always get dumped on some major holiday. I’ve had relationships poop out on Easter, 4th of July, Christmas Eve, and not one but TWO Valentine’s days.

But the most spectacular breakup happened Thanksgiving, 2007. My boyfriend was Scottish, so we both came to my family’s place in California for Turkey Day. Mistake.

A holiday weekend isn’t like a normal one; there’s pressure to look good, catch up with family, and make the entire thing perfect since it only happens a few times a year. If your relationship is anything but rock solid, you may be in for a heap of trouble. To juggle relatives, travel, cooking and a wobbly romance is a recipe for disaster.

The guy and I ended up in a screaming match at the dinner table that was so intense my family shooed us out of the house so that the younger children wouldn’t see us fight. After about an hour of arguing, we calmed down until later that night, when a debate over something inane turned into another catastrophe.

My poor mama eventually pointed her spatula menacingly at us and said “Sort this out or one of you is leaving. At this point, I don’t even care who.”

He and I broke up that night, and the weirdest part is, we went on to have a perfectly wonderful weekend! Once the pressure of being a couple was off, we could actually enjoy each other’s company, and to this day we’re great friends.

Have you had a relationship succumb to the holiday pressure? How to you keep your romance afloat in a sea of tinsel, turkey and travel?